Wanna Be Chased Down By Zombies?

Combining elements of film, video gaming and live-action role playing, the team over at IRL Shooter have come up with the idea of a Left 4 Dead style real life zombie-shooter apocalypse!

Its creation is the work of three people — Drew Hobbs, Ben Powell and David Leadbetter. Drew works primarily on the script, story and characters; Ben covers IT infrastructure and David takes care of production, design and logistics.

The concept, entitled Patient 0, spawned when the trio were drunkenly discussing horror movies and video games at the pub.

“The three of us were crapping on about horror films and video games (as anyone who knows us will testify as being 100 per cent usual), and Ben mentioned the UK company putting on zombie apocalypse games in a shopping mall. This got us more excited than usual, and, as we dissected the concept, the issue of a scoring system was raised as a requirement to make it less about just shooting and more about gaming. This was on a Friday night. By Sunday, we had the website registered, a splash page up and Drew had started writing the outline for what has become Patient 0,” said Leadbetter.

“This is not a picnic, this is a zombie survival experience,” Leadbetter said. “Players enter the building as part of a special ops team sent in to clear the building and discover what actually happened. Like all good video games, there will be missions and puzzles to solve as they go. There will also be health packs, extra ammo and other items inside the building that they may or may not find, depending on how well they play the game. There may be moments where the players can stop to catch their breath, regroup and plan their next move, but there will not be time to kick back and relax.”

“After a very disappointing false start (we were quite advanced in discussions with a certain institution but were ultimately rejected by their board of directors), we decided on a beautiful, disused building that I had come across scouting for film locations. It is a much better option, and the game has grown considerably since we chose it.”

A big factor for the concept is ensuring safety of all involved. “Our biggest concern was that the environment is going to be so real and scary that a player could potentially ‘go rogue’ and start physically assaulting the actors.” For the safety of all people inside the building, the entire playing arena will be covered by CCTV and monitored by a ‘controller’, who will be in radio contact with both the players and the cast. We are incorporating this communication into the gameplay. Players will have to sign a standard liability waiver (similar to if you go bungee jumping, ballooning, play paintball, etc). We will also have an on-site nurse at all times, and full control of the building, so in the unlikely event of an incident we will be able to extract the person almost instantly,” Leadbetter further added.

“Our intention is that after a successful run in Melbourne, we take Patient 0 on the road to all major capitals and regional centres,” Leadbetter said. “Once Patient 0 has run its course, we will be hosting another ‘IRL Shooter Presents’ event. Our philosophy is to bring our favourite FPS video-game scenarios into real life, so expect events with themes such as Ground Assault, Alien Invasion, Nazi Occupation, etc in future.”

Pricing has yet to be finalised, but as per Leadbetter’s conversation with CNET Australia, “We are still working through the price structure for the event, but standard tickets will be in the region of AU$125 per person.”